


A Thing About Cats

by WaldosAkimbo



Series: Quick and Dirty Good Omens Crack or Drabbles [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Cats, Discorporation (Good Omens), He gets better, Maybe - Freeform, alcohol mention, also what is a timeline I don't know I refuse to acknowledge when this is, and I'm bad at math, are they evil, cat allergies, or just about, very briefly, wrote very quickly and not edited so bam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: Crowley comes to Aziraphale's to apologize for something and there's a cat there, and nobody likes that.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Quick and Dirty Good Omens Crack or Drabbles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789003
Comments: 7
Kudos: 40
Collections: The Not-Very-Nice and Anatomically-Inaccurate Prophecies of OLHTS





	A Thing About Cats

It was the cat that did it, you see. One generally knew to keep their wits around such creatures, seeing how they bent the world to their whim and every idiot with eyes and fingers apparently wanted to go up and pet the damn things. Damn is too strong a point. To say they were tainted by Hell’s design gave the boys in R&D too much credit. No, came that way, fresh from the package, popped up in Egypt with their cute little mao’s and, well, the rest. Fat cats. Skinny cats. Cat’s with silly little collars with ruffles and bows and the soulless eyes of a creature so evil, so foul, so murderous, Satan Himself should think about replacing his whole helly hell hound stable. Won’t happen. There’s a thing about it. Aesthetics. Not important.

What is important, you see, is cats.

Well, a cat.

Well, _this_ cat.

 _This_ cat, right, is a gray little thing who lives supposedly in the literal gutters of the corner market near the bookshop. It liked to trounce up on the burnt-out electric adverts and the halogen lamps and skirt through feet on a quick dash to the alleys. It liked to sit on stoops with a lazy paw dipped into an imaginary pool, with the face of someone who was enjoying bonbons for their afternoon. It recently liked to sit next to the shop from a little awning of the bank next door and _stare_.

One might not even notice it. The city was just getting on to truly busy. The whole neighborhood had gone up and was starting to come down with a bad case of “reputation.” Cars were finally popular. Even Aziraphale had to admit they weren’t going away and it added a lot of noise, but somehow that was comforting. Crowley, for his part, liked it. Or, well, was used to it. Hell being crowded as a tin box full of fleas, shaken very fast, and then welded shut, he preferred the cities in so much that he was just used to it and even if he liked disappearing for years on end in his flat, he got itchy without people.

Without Aziraphale.

He got itchy around cats, too, but that’s another matter.

And _this_ cat was close enough that Crowley felt a little tickle up along his collar just before he stepped into the shop with a peace offering of jaffa cakes and spiced rum. The peace offering was because Crowley had said something stupid, it didn’t bear repeating, except Aziraphale wouldn’t let it go. Rum should help. Wine, generally, yes, but Crowley had a little tickle about the flavours, and he thought, oh, there’s a treat. There’s a distraction. There’s the answer to _socks_.

“You have a guardian angel outside,” Crowley said as he waltzed in and stepped out of the way for a patron of the store who was encouraged very forcefully to put down the Faulkner and leave, _thank you_. “Next time,” he said to the man, who looked so dazed, _he_ might have gotten into the spiced rum. “Angel?”

“Guardian what-now?”

“Outside,” Crowley repeated, slipped quickly around the corner and holding up the little turquoise box higher. He should have made it robin’s egg blue. Azirpahale would have liked robin’s egg blue better. “Hello.”

“Crowley.”

Generally speaking, when Crowley just showed up, there were one of three ways Aziraphale liked to acknowledge him. One, with a little jolt up his spine, like he had been licked from nape to crack, and his hands did this funny little thing near his chest, his cheeks bubbling from a very happy smile. Two, with wide eyes and a shiver, no doubt from Gabriel or someone being nearby and afraid Crowley would give the game away – he tended to leave during such occasions. Safer that way. Wait for a bit and come back and hope it was the first reaction. Or, third, with dull eyes and pursed lips and that little _wrinkle_ between his brows.

And, lo, it was the third today. Fantastic.

“You’re not still on about it?” Crowley asked, which wasn’t supposed to be the first thing out of his mouth. It was supposed to be, “I’ve got ca-aa-ake.” And then hoist up the box and the bottle in one go and add, “and rum, if you like,” to the end there, and that was supposed to be how it went. Which it never went that way, so he should stop rehearsing in his office and spend his time having one-way-conversations with God in the futile hope She might answer back. Almost got her once! But that just turned out to be a car misfiring outside. Next time, perhaps.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Aziraphale said from his corner where he was reshelving books by the window.

“It was an accident!”

It wasn’t.

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Oh, Crowley very much did.

“Look, I—”

“I can’t believe you killed all those people,” Aziraphale said in the very same way someone might say, “I can’t believe you forgot to get the milk,” or “I can’t believe you would draw on the walls.” A minor thing. But such a low blow.

“I _didn’t_!” Not intentionally, and that was the only thread Crowley had to hold onto. It was the same he felt when he got that commendation for the Spanish Inquisition. No thank you. Please return to sender and never ring again. “It was only meant as a bit of fun.”

“Fun,” Aziraphale repeated.

Weirdly, this conversation usually went the other way. Strange to be standing on this side, defending fun. Mischief? Sure. Dastardly deeds? In the job description. But fun? And doubly so after Aziraphale started hanging out with that Houdini fellow. Rubbish, fun. Except when you try and enchant some socks to get a couple dancing and you get a _little_ carried away. It was the worst fun that town had had in 1541. He had mostly drunk away the memory to moderate success, until he found souvenir of the event. Who keeps socks? Weirdos. Doesn’t matter, it had that little bit of magic and, sure, it was a small prank, but Crowley was also bitter he’d missed out on Aziraphale dancing in gentlemen’s clubs. His fault. Not the point.

“Fun and games until someone gets hurt,” Aziraphale admonished.

“Oh someone always gets hurt,” Crowley sneered, recoiling visibly, his eyes wandering away from the angel because it was getting painful to look at him and his grumpy face.

“Or _dies_.”

“Didn’t think—”

“No, I can see that you do not. You….”

Aziraphale kept talking, of course, trying to extol his virtues or something, but Crowley had gone and looked past him, out the window, and say a cat. _The_ cat. And it was staring back at him through the filmy windows, big black eyes that, for such a small creature, seemed to envelope the sun itself. He felt a bead of sweat, in rare form, slither down his back, giving him a bit of a chill. That cat. That cat was evil. And he should know. Demon, and all.

“…with regards to local ordinances and you…Crowley? Are you even listening to me?”

“No,” he admitted right away, his voice distant, and he handed over the cake box at last.

“Oh!” It was a small distraction. Aziraphale couldn’t help himself, when he saw the baker’s shop name scrawled over the top of it, lifting the lid. There was the tiniest hesitation before he did so and Crowley, even distracted as he was, was convinced once more he’d picked the wrong colour. Robin’s egg next time. That’s a promise. “Crowley, you can’t…oh, those do look so good.”

“They are. Do you see that cat?”

Aziraphale turned as it was mentioned, and perhaps at the way Crowley stalked towards the window like some vulture, neck craned and everything.

“Yes, dear boy. He’s a local favorite. I’m told he helps with the mice.”

“Evil bastard.”

“What?”

“That thing is—”

“He’s darling!” Aziraphale reached out and gently smacked Crowley’s arm. “Be nice to him.”

“He’s staring at us!”

“And you came in with food. I’m sure he’s just curious.”

“You know what they say about curiosity and cats, Angel.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Wha- nn- eh – me?! I’m not!”

“Threatening cats?” Aziraphale asked calmly, pinching a corner of the little cake and bringing it close to his lips. “Seems it. He was in here earlier, you know?” Crowley’s eyes went wide, looking around, even as Aziraphale continued with a little happy sigh, just before he ate the piece in hand. “Soft as a cloud.”

There was an itch. A terrible, clawing _itch_ up Crowley’s throat as he backed away from Aziraphale. He clutched for it, as one does, his head spinning. He thought his vision was darkening and discovered just so that it was.

Funny thing about imagination and demons. Crowley understood what it was like to have the flu and what it meant to be bone tired because he’d convinced himself he could feel them. And when he witnessed some poor bastard have an asthma attack over allergies, he’d convinced himself he could too. Whenever he’d picked up an allergy to cats couldn’t be rightly determined, but it might have been during the plague. Everything was itchy during the plague. And a chance glance towards a cat during a flea bite or two and that did it. Plus, he was naïve at the time and popular literature, even as he did his best to ignore the whole century, did manage to work its way to him. About cats. And evil. Which didn’t make sense because, again, they weren’t demonic by nature. By nature, by _God_ , they just were. But, oh, the mind plays tricks and the tricks a demon’s mind play can be deadly.

“Crowley?”

Right, _now_ he sounds contrite. Crowley would roll his eyes if he wasn’t choking on his tongue.

“Crowley!”

Crowley should make fun of him. He’d slain a demon. He’d probably get a medal Gabriel over it. They could make fun of it later, after he finished his paperwork to get sent back up again. Oh, that was going to be a headache. Yes, he had a very bad headache now, dropping to the floor and toppling a bunch of books in the most dramatic fashion as that _cat_ watched from his little perch outside. Already, he could feel his soul melt through the floorboards, ready to slither back to Hell and beg Beelzebub for a new body. Fuck, that was going to be annoying. He liked this one! He’d figured out all the knobs and dials needed to run it! And! This one liked chocolate!

Nobody had told Crowley yet about allergies to chocolate, and they’d be smart to avoid the topic.

But, well, there he goes. There he goes, over a stupid cat! And because he’d given Aziraphale antique cursed stockings, like, twenty years ago and wished to make ammends! Let. It. Go! Ugh. He was a bit sorry Aziraphale was going to have to bury the body. Maybe burn it? What did he do with the bodies? He’d never had to take care of Aziraphale’s body after a discorporation and wasn’t sure if the Angel _had_ ever discorporated. Good for him, Crowley supposed, but it was—

What’s happening.

Crowley sits up and splutters, holding the hand that is holding his chest.

“Right, there you are,” Aziraphale said with an appropriate little grunt. “Can you hear me?” He spoke in loud, open vowels, enunciating too clearly.

“Yes, yes!” Crowley shoves him away and then decides better and pulls him close. His fingertips feel all tingly. Must be his soul still stretching back into it, like a foot going into a stocking that’s bunched weird at the toes. Straighten that out in a moment. “What’d you do?”

“You were dying!”

“Only a little,” Crowley said and slumped against Aziraphale. “Cat allergies.”

“Cat allergies?” Crowley nodded, and Aziraphale just spluttered, “Crowley, you can’t be allergic to _cats_!”

“Yes, I can!”

“ _Why_?”

There was no good answer for that, was there? Because? Sounds stupid just to think it. Crowley opens and closes his mouth before he gave a pathetic shrug.

“Thought I’d try it out, I guess,” he finally mumbled. Because, in the end, it was pretty psychosomatic for a demon to feel tired. Or sick. Or die from asphyxiation from a cat allergy. “You saved me?”

“Suppose I did!” He was only shouting because he’d been frightened, that was probably it. Crowley laughed and gently shoved at Aziraphale. “Don’t say a word on this one. I’ll be in such trouble if anyone finds out.”

“You will? Think of it from my end, right? Saved by an angel.” They leveled a look and it wasn’t long before cracks formed across their lips and they were laughing. Aziraphale helped him up again, dusting him off, with a final pat that said the incident was to be forgotten. “Let me get us a glass, then,” he said, straightening out his jacket. He gave a final look out the window. The cat looked back and Crowley was certain he saw it smile. So Crowley lit the awning on fire and left it at that.


End file.
